XML was designed to be a new standard for marking up data on the web. However, as a result of its extensible and flexible properties, XML is now being used more and more for other purposes than was originally intended. Today XML is prompting an approach more focused on data exchange, between different applications inside companies or even between cooperating businesses.
Businesses are showing interest in using XML as an integral part of their work. Ericsson Microwave Systems (EMW) is a company that sees XML as a conceivable solution to problems in the work with radar communications. An approach towards a solution based on a relational database system has earlier been analysed.
In this project we present an investigation of the work at EMW, and identification and documentation of the problems in the radar communication work. Also, the requirements and expectations that EMW has on XML are presented. Moreover, an analysis has been made to decide to what extent XML could be used to solve the problems of EMW. The analysis was conducted by elucidating the problems and possibilities of XML compared to the previous approach for solving the problems at EMW, which was based on using a relational database management system.
The analysis shows that XML has good features for representing hierarchically structured data, as in the EMW case. It is also shown that XML is good for data integration purposes. Furthermore, the analysis shows that XML, due to its self-describing and weak typing nature, is inappropriate to use in the data semantics and integrity problem context of EMW. However, it also shows that the new XML Schema standard could be used as a complement to the core XML standard, to partially solve the semantics problems.